EvoXLabs founder Ather Sharif discusses his experiences in making tech-focused workplaces more inclusive, from building technology solutions to how and why EvoXLabs developed a partnership with Access Computing at UW that connects students with disabilities with mentors and internships in tech.

Shea Tanis, Associate Director of the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities, led a discussion of why technology and information access is a critical right for everyone, and how technology solutions are changing employment opportunities for people with cognitive disabilities.

In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), W4A Conference Chair Vivienne Conway recounts the top trends emerging from the global conference Web For All 2017: The Future of Accessible Work.

Self-driving cars show exciting promise to address existing barriers for people with disabilities traveling to and from work—as long as developers incorporate accessibility into these technologies from the start.

Today, many industries are actively recruiting people with autism and other neurological disabilities into their workforces, particularly in fields such as accounting, engineering, and information technology. Join PEAT and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) for a Twitter Chat to discuss the specific ways employers can leverage accessible technology to meet the needs of neurodiverse individuals—and also maximize the productivity of all employees. You can join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #PEATTalks.

Rachel Kerrigan of the Perkins-Business Partnership joined PEAT Talks to discuss how they are helping to bridge the hiring gap for people with disabilities by educating HR professionals online about common barriers to access.

AccessibilityOz CEO​ Gian Wild and Rob Haverty, Senior Program Manager at Adobe explore the accessibility challenges related to PDFs. Topics include how to handle issues such as an existing archive of untagged PDFs on a website. ​

In this webinar, Jennifer Ravalli of ADP and Dan Sullivan of AudioEye discuss how they have worked to make ADP's human capital management (HCM) software more accessible for employees with disabilities.

Jenny Lay Flurrie, Chief Accessibility Officer at Microsoft, recently joined PEAT Talks to offer her perspectives on the role that technology plays in creating a workplace culture of inclusion and accessibility.

Video accessibility requires more than simply providing transcripts, captions and audio descriptions. Join AccessibilityOz CEO Gian Wild for a detailed demonstration, discussion, and Q&A about how to make videos accessible to people with disabilities.

The annual HR Technology Conference is always an essential event for PEAT, given their focus on technology tools and trends shaping the field of human resources. This year we left feeling more excited and energized than ever, because the topic of accessibility is finally starting to take hold in the hearts and minds of HR Tech stakeholders.

Learn how educational institutions are bridging the hiring gap for new graduates with disabilities by educating HR professionals online about common barriers to access. Rachel Kerrigan discusses how Perkins School for the Blind and Harvard Extension School have partnered to provide a free online course titled “Introduction to Inclusive Talent Acquisition” for hiring managers and recruiters. The curriculum includes PEAT’s own TalentWorks tool, which provides key resources to help employers make their eRecruiting technologies accessible.

Images are used on websites for many different functions, and each require a different approach for accessibility. In this webinar Gian Wild discusses how to ensure your images are both accessible and usable for people with disabilities.

In order to ensure that your eRecruiting materials and other website content is accessible, it’s essential that your website include properly formatted tables. In this webinar, Gian Wild of Accessibility Oz provides a hands-on demonstration of coding and sequence requirements for both data tables and layout tables, and the easy way to determine the difference between table types​

Maria Town, Senior Associate Director for the White House Office of Public Engagement, discusses the important work that the current Administration has done to promote the use of accessible technology in workplaces nationwide.

Last month’s M-Enabling Summit brought international leaders together from a range of fields connected to the promotion and advancement of accessible mobile applications—and allowed PEAT to advance key actions related to accessible technology issues impacting employment though a policy roundtable and a panel discussion.

According to a new survey report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 84% of organizations are now using social media for recruiting, up from 56% in 2011. These survey results add detail and paint a picture of what has become obvious: more and more, employers are posting job openings and information for job seekers on social media. And when these posts are not accessible, employers may be missing out on top talent.

Do you post job openings on Twitter and Instagram, or use LinkedIn to vet candidates? Today, 79% of job seekers use social media to locate job opportunities. In this webinar, digital marketer Eliza Greenwood will discuss steps to ensure that your social media recruiting efforts for active and passive talent can successfully reach candidates with disabilities. ​

One of the great promises of technology is that it can, and should, open the doors for people with disabilities to participate in the workplace by eliminating barriers. But when Deque web accessibility consultant and strategist Denis Boudreau investigated the basic accessibility of five top job hunting sites, the results were grim.

Good afternoon everybody. It's 2:00 o'clock so we're going to go ahead and get started. Hello, and welcome to our webinar today, introducing the new PEAT resource TalentWorks. We're very excited you've joined us. My name is Josh Christianson. I'm the project director of PEAT, and I'm joined today by Joiwind Ronen, who has been involved with PEAT in a variety of roles for a few years now and played an instrumental role in developing TalentWorks, and she will be giving us a tour of the resource a little bit later.

Deputy Secretary of Labor Chris Lu discusses his takeaways from meeting with the great Stevie Wonder and hundreds of other dedicated leading accessibility "stars" at last month's International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN). As he notes, "our commitment to accessible technology is about basic civil rights, as well as the collective productivity of America’s workforce...employers, technology vendors and tech users with disabilities must all work together to raise awareness and educate one another about accessible workplace technology issues, most of which can be easily solved."

Introduction

Hello and welcome to PEAT Talks, the virtual speaker series from the Partnership on Employment and Accessible Technology. On every third Thursday of the month, PEAT Talks showcases various organizations on individuals whose work and innovations are advancing accessible technology in the workplace. My name is Christa Beal. I'm a member of the PEAT Team and I'll be hosting today's talk.

While new technologies have broken down countless barriers for individuals with disabilities, job hunting online continues to be fraught with accessibility-related obstacles that the general population may not even realize exist. And as GettingHired's Gabrielle Nagle discusses, inaccessible eRecruiting doesn’t just affect the job seeker, but also the employer.

As businesses compete to attract talented, skilled employees, it’s important to make sure that artificial barriers aren’t blocking their path. In this cautionary tale, Sassy Outwater explains how employers may be missing out on top candidates when their online hiring and recruiting systems aren't accessible.

Is corporate America waking up to the idea that accessibility can be a business driver, not an added expense? In the February PEAT Talk, AudioEye's Dan Sullivan, a senior executive with 15 years of experience in HR, suggested this is already happening.

>>Hello, and welcome to PEAT Talks, the virtual speaker series from the Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology. On every third Thursday of the month, PEAT Talks showcases various organizations and individuals whose work and innovations are advancing accessible technology in the workplace. My name is Christa Beal. I’m a member of the PEAT team and I’ll be hosting this today’s talk.

How do people with disabilities use the Internet to search for and apply for jobs? Daniel Ferro, senior interaction designer at Forum One, explores the ways that people with various disabilities interact with eRecruiting tools. His message to employers and HR professionals? "Don’t think of accessibility as a troublesome box you need to check—think about it in terms of your opportunity to connect with the best talent."

Interested in why accessible eRecruiting tools make sense, and how to implement? Join Denis Boudreau, senior web accessibility consultant for Deque, to learn the simple steps that web developers and designers can take to ensure that job seekers with disabilities are not excluded from employment opportunities.

Online hiring practices have made it increasingly easy to apply for a job—unless you’re a person with a disability, that is. Senior Web Accessibility Consultant Denis Boudreau explores the problem of why the employment rate of Americans with disabilities has continued to drop for the last 25 years, and how web designers and developers hold a key to improving the situation.

Universal design allows us to develop content and experiences that are inclusive of the widest possible audience. In this recorded webinar, Sina Bahram discusses how Prime Access Consulting (PAC) has worked with museums, universities, and corporations to successfully apply universal design principles to help advance digital accessibility for a variety of clients.

PEAT is funded by the Office of Disability Employment Policy, U.S. Department of Labor. PEAT material does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Office of Disability Employment Policy, U.S. Department of Labor, nor does the mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.